Early Trump and the Late Joe Biden

In a display of his wit and intellect JFK gathered his Ivy League brain trust together and declared, There has never been assembled in the White House so much intellect in one room since Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

To paraphrase his statement in the converse one might say upon entering an institution for the criminally insane, There has never been assembled so much pathological malice under one roof since Donald Trump dined alone.

What went wrong with little Donald? I have some insight on the subject, whether real or imagined, owing to an accident of geography. From 1^st to 7^th grade he attended Kew Forest School directly across the street from my apartment building in Forest Hills.

My father’s drug store was also located across from the school. Though he closed his doors a few years before Trump appeared on the scene I have distinct memories of students from that private school occupying the three booths adjacent to the soda fountain for an hour or more with two straws sipping a cherry coke. They were heedless of others waiting for a booth. Privilege was a given. A few had charge accounts never paid when my father gave up his store.

According to a classmate and friend of his in those formative years Donald was a hair-pulling, spitball-throwing mischief-maker who boasted of giving one teacher a black eye. He was pulled out in 7^th grade and placed in a military academy.

The school took up one large square block surrounded by a chain link fence which ensured the privileged of minimal contamination from the less fortunate. During summer months and on weekends when classes were not in session we neighborhood kids would climb that fence and put their grassed area to good use. It became our baseball diamond and football field.

Maybe that fence was the seminal barrier that took root in Donald’s mind. The beginning of Us and Them. The only immigrants among us were my two German refugee friends, Peter Dalebrook and Frank Loeb. Another friend and neighbor, Johnny Kassabian came from a family of asylum-seekers out of the Armenian genocide. Not a rapist or drug-dealer among them.

I can only imagine an exchange between Donald’s teacher and his parents…………….

Dear Mrs. Trump, So sorry you were unable to attend parent’s 

night. We have much to discuss about your son’s behavior disrupting the class and threatening others with his nasty mouth.

Dear Mr. Trump, Your support of our beloved school is well-appreciated however you abuse your position on the Board of Trustees. You must know that having me dismissed does no favor for your child who will likely grow up a menace to society.

Why anyone would vote for the man with arrested development, the brat behind the fence.... is a subject to be studied by the usual array of academicians along with forensic criminologists, brain surgeons, evolutionary biologists, comedians and tragedians.  

Tonight begins a long season of Democrat debates. Where have you gone JFK, and all your best and brightest advisors? Can Rip Van Biden be resuscitated in time to recall that thirty-five years have passed since his last new idea? His old mediocrity is not enough. He is late for his train which left the station decades ago. He lacks both the grasp and the gumption to stand up to the Bozo.

The time is now ripe for a true populism. Not by an imposter but by one who speaks truth to power, who hears the aggrieved and underserved as well as the peril to our planet. That word electability cuts both ways. Let the low-information Centrists wake up to a Progressive agenda. Or else those outside the chain link of privilege may not bother to show up in 2020. Let this not be another campaign demonstrating the evil of two lessors.